Centrebacks diving (or going down way too easy)

[Huyton Layne]

After watching Cahill today it seems no position is free from the plague that is diving and also exaggerating minor touches.
Centrebacks used to be the hard people on the field taking lumps left right and centre and battling hard with centre forwards, now they just pull shirts and dive. The sport needs sorting out.

 

[blueser]

It's embarrassing, Cahill should have sleepless nights , I am embarrassing being a fan of watching sport where it's acceptable. Chelsea are a team of athletic fannys

 

[MartSlinger]

Martinez was spot on in his interview regarding how the Chelsea players know how to 'buy free kicks' and how Probert bought it. You could see their goal coming yesterday, for the last 10mins Probert was giving them EVERY 50/50.

 

[royalblue66]

Martinez was spot on in his interview regarding how the Chelsea players know how to 'buy free kicks' and how Probert bought it. You could see their goal coming yesterday, for the last 10mins Probert was giving them EVERY 50/50.

Considering we have two or three experts in taking free kicks I think we should should be playing for free kicks, I can't see what's wrong with using every trick in the book to get results, a few years back West Ham had a reputation for playing nice football and it was great playing them because at the end of the day we we knew we would get the points,hope we don't become the West Ham of today.

 

[Nashtbs]

But we watch a sport where buying free kicks is "clever."

I didn't complain when Arteta did it week in, week out for us.

I personally think the issue with defenders is, where in other parts of the pitch it's classed as obstruction, at CB it's shielding the ball out.

 

[WA Toffee]

I don't think any team which has Pienaar playing for them can complain too much about the opposition buying free kicks unfortunately.

But it is a blight on the game, especially the rolling around pretendng you have a serious injury then 30 seconds later making a 40 yard run on goal

 

[PaddyG]

Jagielka has done it a few times.

 

[toffeejack]

baines goes down quite easily to win free kicks tbh.

the players aren't risking anything by diving, that's where the problem is, the odd time they'll get a yellow - as if that is going to make them think twice.